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Need advice. Shooting portraits.

Im not sure if this matches the title. But here goes.

My friend is a part time bikini model. She wants me to take some shots of her and probably can add into her portfolio.

I did explain to her that i am still a newbie, holding a nikon d90 with a kit lens. So i usually have to rely alot on natural lighting. Setting is by the beach. She says she can be my guinea pig to improve my skills but im still nervous. So far it has always been casual shots.

What are the right settings on this kind of shots? Aperture wise. 5.6 is ok? How about post processing? What am i looking for when im doing editing?

Re: Need advice. Shooting portraits.

first, your PM box will be flooded, lots of people volunteer themselves as reflector boyz, lighting gurus and portrait specialists to shoot together with you....... lol

just pay attention on your exposure, WB and composition, watch your background.
and also pay great attention the fine details, body posture and expression.

if you get 80% right in the camera, all you need is just cleaning up some the imperfection you have missed or unavoidable. little touch up on the face is good, too plasticky is deceiving. but some people find it nice, some people find it awful.

Re: Need advice. Shooting portraits.

Hi FuraCelest,

There is no fixed settings, but for portraitures most of the time people will shoot in aperture priority mode to control the DOF. Which aperture to use, again no fix rule, but you would want to use wider aperture (smaller f-number, e.g. f/2.8) if you want to blur the background, and narrower aperture if you want to include the surrounding. What you can do is to take a wide variety of shots, from head-and-shoulder to full-body, from shallow DOF to deep DOF, from ultra wide angle to tele, with different shooting angles (up, down, left, right), different lightings (under bright light, shadow, hard/soft light, different angle of lighting, etc), different background (not just limiting to bikini on the beach). Just have fun and experiment, since your friend is willing to be your guinea pig.

Re: Need advice. Shooting portraits.

discuss with your friend which poses she did be doing and roughly what kind of style she likes. It's important not just for her but doubly for you, so you can do your homework. Don't take 'anything also can la' as an answer. have fun!

first, your PM box will be flooded, lots of people volunteer themselves as reflector boyz, lighting gurus and portrait specialists to shoot together with you....... lol

just pay attention on your exposure, WB and composition, watch your background.
and also pay great attention the fine details, body posture and expression.

if you get 80% right in the camera, all you need is just cleaning up some the imperfection you have missed or unavoidable. little touch up on the face is good, too plasticky is deceiving. but some people find it nice, some people find it awful.

hope this help.

Oh ok. Cant help but smile on your first paragraph lol. But anyways thanks alot. At least now i know on what to look out for.

Originally Posted by ziploc

Hi FuraCelest,

There is no fixed settings, but for portraitures most of the time people will shoot in aperture priority mode to control the DOF. Which aperture to use, again no fix rule, but you would want to use wider aperture (smaller f-number, e.g. f/2.8) if you want to blur the background, and narrower aperture if you want to include the surrounding. What you can do is to take a wide variety of shots, from head-and-shoulder to full-body, from shallow DOF to deep DOF, from ultra wide angle to tele, with different shooting angles (up, down, left, right), different lightings (under bright light, shadow, hard/soft light, different angle of lighting, etc), different background (not just limiting to bikini on the beach). Just have fun and experiment, since your friend is willing to be your guinea pig.

Cheers and have fun.

Haha yeah my friend happily volunteered. I only have my d90 kit lens to work on. Since this is gonna be alot of trial n error, i hope my friend will be patient with me. And i will take your advice on shooting at different angles. Its gonna be interesting.

Originally Posted by foxtwo

discuss with your friend which poses she did be doing and roughly what kind of style she likes. It's important not just for her but doubly for you, so you can do your homework. Don't take 'anything also can la' as an answer. have fun!

True true. I'll ask her that. Atleast i wont be too clueless on which sort of shots i would have to take.